RUMINATION OF THE SCARUS 155KOI 0uKia aXXa, the difference between which seems accordingto Aristotle merely one of size. If a poU of writers on Fishing and of practical Pisciculturistswere taken to-day, a large majority would vote that sea-fishdo not eat seaweed, but feed on the larvcB, and other minuteinsects in or on the various algce or seaweeds. But against thisopinion is arrayed the authority of Darwin and WaUace, whostate that various species of Scarus do browse, and do grazeon seaweed, and some of them exclusively on coral. 1 The Skaros (according to Aristotle) was the only fish whichseemed to mminate,2 whose food was seaweed, 3 and teeth,set in deep saw-edged jaws, were not sharp and interlocking,like those of aU other fidi, but resembled those of a parrot, asits beak resembled that of a parrot.* From the seeming to ruminate of Aristotle we reach in laterwnriters like Oppian, I. 134 ff., and Ovid, Hal., 119, the positiveassertion that the scarus did ruminate. ^ Is it not possible, if a mere angler may hazard a suggestion on scientffic points, that the belief of modern writers and pisci¬culturists is not far out, and that whUe some of the Scari do browse and graze exclusively on coral, and some sometimes on seaweed, they do this to obtain as food only the minute larvce, which their so-called rumination helps them to separate from the seaweed or coral ? * A second very practical argument against the reading musco suggests itself. Let us aUow that some sea fish do eat not only algcs but moss: even then, why should our Scarus 1 Voyage of the Beagle, ch. 20: " Two species of fish of the genus scarus, which are common here (KeeUng Island), exclusively feed on coral." Sir R. Owen, " The anterior teeth are soldered together and adapted to the habits and exigences of a tribe of fishes which browse on the Uthophytes, that clothe the bottom of the sea, just as ruminant quadrupeds crop the herbage of the dry land." 2 N. H., II. 17 : ii.6vos ixBis SoKi'i liripvKdieiv. Cf., however, N. H., IX. 50. » VIII. 2, 13. « Arist., N. H., II. 13. PUny, XI. 61. " Piscium omnibus (dentes) serrati, praeter scarum : huic uni aquatilium plani." * In VII. 113, we again find Athenaeus misrepresenting Aristotle. 8 " This idea of rumination," according to Mr. Lones, op. cii., p. 237, " by the parrot -wrasse (Scarus cretensis), -which is clearly the Skaros of the Ancients, probably arose from its grazing or cropping ofi marine plants, and grinding them down, assisted by its having a strongly walled stomach " (cf. the functions of the gizzard of a fowl) with which, out of the myriads of M